By Rysha Sultania
Throughout this pandemic, I have been making extensive use of my Netflix and
Amazon Primevideo accounts to binge watch seasons through seasons of crime and
mystery thrillers. Desperate to reveal the dirtiest secrets of the antagonist, the
superstars poke into the crazy high tech software the villain uses, often discovering
a criminalizing picture or scandalous video much to their sadistic pleasure. Now
how do manage pulling off this superhero-esque feat? It's simple really, don't
wrack you brains too much, just learn to hack!
Yes when you hear the word 'hacker'; you immediately envision underground cyber
black holes, complete with shady guys in hoodies, busy at work behind virus
manufacturing screens. And okay yeah, that may be some of it but it all certainly
transforms completely when you put the word ethical in front of their job
description. The term "white hat" in Internet slang refers to an ethical computer
hacker, or a computer security expert, who specializes in penetration testing and in
other testing methodologies that ensures the security of an organization's
information systems.(1)
With the ever increasing rate of cyber crimes and online offences, it has become
imperative for different organizations and companies to build walls around their
online presence to ensure no prying eyes find themselves in unwelcome places. It
protects the company from securing no possibility of ill wishers to gain from
exposing their vulnerabilities and preventing sensitive information from falling
into enemy hands.
In order to mitigate cyber terrorism and non state activity, ethical hacking often
involves fierce protection of the nation's digital resources. Since hackers have a
great knowledge of their area of expertise, they can identify potential entry points
and can view your data from the attacker's view, they are the perfect candidates for
the post of your online army.
Aside from the obvious advantages of employing a white hat to protect your data,
it can also pose several benefits to your firm. With swift development cycles,
quality assurance and security testing are often overlooked. Trained ethical hackers
are an asset to the company. They can perform quick security tests to ensure the
software functions aptly under standard and extreme conditions. (2)
The field is a dynamic one and is slowly becoming quite popular amongst the
youth of today. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that
information security analysts, which includes ethical hackers, can expect to
see jobs increase by 32% from 2018 to 2028. As an employee, ethical hacking will
help you gain new skills that are useful in a variety of roles, including risk
management, network defender, quality assurance tester, and software developer. It
also opens up employment opportunities for those wanting a new role or hoping to
impress their organizations.
The 2016 Presidential Elections of the USA has spurred great talk about the
Russians hacking and influencing the result. Donald Trump whose birthday it is
today ironically, has been also accused with sifting through Hilary's mail. Now if
these activities occur, hacking must exist but if they managed to escape
exacerbating the PR nightmare, ethical hackers must exist too. I'd like to leave you
with a final thought- Hacking is not a crime, it is an art.
Sources-
(1) Ward, Mark (14 September 1996). "Sabotage in cyberspace". New
Scientist. 151 (2047).
(2) https://www.colocationamerica.com/blog/what-is-ethical-
hacking#:~:text=The%20prime%20purpose%20of%20ethical,security%20and%20
prevent%20security%20breaches.
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